The movement of people in large groups (pedestrian traffic) can be facilitated through the use of escalators, moving walkways, and other similar mechanical devices. These mechanical means of transporting people can be used to transport a large group of people horizontally across a long distance or vertically along a series of moving steps. The advantage of such a device is that the walkway is constantly moving and thereby able to move a large amount of people very efficiently. In contrast, an elevator has the disadvantage that its movement is not continuous and must stop and reverse its direction to carry people in the opposite direction.
Due to their efficiency advantage, escalators and moving walkways have become popular within large buildings or structures such as airports, shopping malls, office buildings, theaters and the like. Escalators and moving walkways typically have a grooved surface for a pedestrian to stand upon. The grooved surface is a feature of the design that helps to maintain proper alignment during its operation. At the beginning and end of each escalator or moving walkway is the part of the device called the comb, which has a comb-like structure that fits within each of the grooves in the grooved surface. The comb remains stationary while each step or walkway section moves adjacent to it such that the transition from moving walkway to stationary walkway is seamless.
Without the grooved features that match the comb, the chance of serious bodily injury would rise. The machine components moving an escalator and walkway are extremely strong and dangerous. An escalator or moving walkway could easily kill or injure a person if a part of their body or part of their clothing was accidently caught by the moving components. For these reasons and many others, the comb and grooved surface design are necessary elements which cannot be removed. Unfortunately, these grooved surfaces are difficult to clean.
Typically the cleaning staff of a large building or structure will sweep, mop, polish, vacuum and clean the various walkways where pedestrian traffic has soiled them. Pedestrian traffic can leave marks on the floor, trash, or debris from food. For instance, food may be spilled in the floor, such as an ice cream cone. Typical cleaning techniques are adequate to clean an ice cream cone from a marble floor, but it is far more difficult to clean the grooved surfaces of an escalator or moving walkway where an ice cream cone has fallen. The grooves do not lend themselves to be easily cleaned. Also, half of the escalator is always hidden from cleaning further complicating the cleaning process. It is a waste of resources to have a person manually clean the escalator or moving walkway, when their time is better spent attending to more effective cleaning chores.
To help facilitate cleaning an escalator or moving walkway, various devices have been created which clean the escalator and moving walkway while it is motion. These devices are set up near the start of the moving portion of the escalator or moving walkway and are left to clean for a predetermined about of time while the escalator and moving walkway operate. Unfortunately, many devices can only clean a portion of the escalator or moving walkway, and then must be repositioned to clean an adjacent portion. This is because escalators and walkways come in different widths and sizes. Some escalators and moving walkways are narrower and typically move one person in width at a time. Other escalators and moving walkways are wide and can move two people in width at a time. It is therefore difficult to create a device that can clean all the different sizes of escalators and moving walkways currently used today.
The devices of the prior art must be set up to clean just a portion of the width of the escalator, and then later moved to clean an adjacent portion. This means that the center of the escalator might be cleaned twice, which then leaves an uneven appearance after cleaning has finished. Otherwise, special brush heads and vacuum heads must be separately purchased to match the specific size of a certain escalator. Changing brush heads and vacuum heads can be problematic and cumbersome. Also, vacuum heads which are too wide tend to have a low suction at the ends and therefore does a poor job of cleaning.
Accordingly, there is a need for an escalator and moving walkway cleaner that can easily adjust to fit and clean an entire width of the walkway in one pass. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides other related advantages.